later the bed may be made up.  In order to conserve the heat the material will need to be three to four feet deep, and if a box frame is used the bed should be at least two feet wider than the frame.  Build up the material in even, well-consolidated layers, to prevent unequal and undue sinking, and make the corners of the bed perfectly sound.  Put on the bed about one foot depth of fine, rich soil; if there is any difficulty about this, eight inches must suffice, but twelve is to be preferred.  As the season advances less fermenting material will be needed, and a simple but effective hot-bed may be made by digging out a hole of the required size and filling it with the manure.  The latter will in due time sink, when the soil may be added and the frame placed in position.  The bed should always be near the glass, and a great point is gained if the crop can be carried through without once giving water, for watering tends to damage the shape of the roots.  No seed should be sown until the temperature has declined to 80 deg..  Sow broadcast, cover with siftings just deep enough to hide the seed, and close the frame.  If after an interval the heat rises above 70 deg., give air to keep it down to that figure or to 65 deg..  It will probably decline to 60 deg. by the time the plant appears, but if the bed is a good one it will stand at that figure long enough to make the crop.  Thin betimes to two or three inches, give air at every opportunity, let the plant have all the light possible, and cover up when hard weather is expected.  Should the heat go down too soon, linings must be used to finish the crop.  Radishes and other small things can be grown on the same bed.  In cold frames seed may be sown in February.

==Warm Borders.==—­In March the first sowings on warm borders in the open garden may be made.  These may need the shelter of mats or old lights until the plant has made a good start, but it is not often the plant suffers in any serious degree from spring frosts, as the seed will not germinate until the soil acquires a safe temperature.  All the early crops of Carrot can be grown on a prepared soil, or a light sandy loam, free from recent manure.  The drills may be spaced from six to nine inches apart.

==For the main crops== double digging should be practised, and if the staple is poor a dressing of half-rotten dung may be put in with the bottom spit.  But a general manuring as for a surface-rooting crop is not to be thought of, the sure effect being to cause the roots to fork and fang most injuriously.  It is sound practice to select for Carrots a deep soil that was heavily manured the year before, and to prepare this by double digging without manure in the autumn or winter, so as to have the ground well pulverised by the time the seed is sown.  Then dig it over one spit deep, break the lumps, and make seed-beds four feet wide.  Sow in April and onwards in drills, mixing the seed with dry earth, the distance between rows to be eight to twelve inches according